


This Is What It's Like To Drown

by T Verano (t_verano)



Category: The Sentinel (TV)
Genre: Angst, Bonding, Dark, M/M, Partner Betrayal, Unresolved Angst, post SenToo, written for multikinkmeme on dreamwidth
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-05-18
Updated: 2011-05-18
Packaged: 2020-03-29 09:58:12
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,319
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19017592
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/t_verano/pseuds/T%20Verano
Summary: Lee Brackett knows something Blair doesn't know about sentinels.





	This Is What It's Like To Drown

**Author's Note:**

> written for this (inspiringly disturbing - and disturbingly inspiring) prompt on dreamwidth's multifandom kink meme:
> 
> "Jim Ellison/Lee Brackett - Rivals, Betrayal, Angst, Bonding, Wrong people end up together"
> 
> Title is from _Salt Fish Girl_ by Larissa Lai

This time it wasn't Alex. 

This time he wasn't standing on a beach in the early morning sunlight, watching the apparently totally fucked-up man he tried to pretend he didn't love climb all fucking over a woman who murdered people, who was carting around stolen nerve gas, for god's sake; the woman who'd murdered _him._

No, this time he was standing in his own home (Jim's home, _Jim's),_ watching what had to be (couldn't be, _couldn't_ be) a new world order saunter down the steps from Jim's loft, belt still unfastened, bare-chested, smugger than shit.

"Blair," Brackett said. He was smiling.

Blair looked up at Jim's bed. He couldn't see anything from here, just pillows. "Jim?" he said, and damn it, Brackett heard the hitch he tried to keep out of his voice and smiled more broadly.

"Jim?" Blair said again. It had hurt last night, getting in late and hearing Jim having sex upstairs with somebody. It had hurt worse that the somebody sounded very male (Jim didn't _do_ that, Jim _never_ did that, Jim was _straight),_ that Jim and whoever it was were obviously really rocking it together, that whoever it was wasn't _Blair._

If he'd known that 'whoever' was _Brackett..._ God. How _could_ Jim?

The sheets on Jim's bed rustled. At least Jim was still alive. "Jim? Jim, are you okay? Brackett drugged you, right? He must've --"

"I'm all right, Sandburg." The mattress creaked a little and Blair could see Jim now, sitting on the side of the bed. His chest was as bare as Brackett's. There was a reddish splotch on his skin near his right nipple, standing out clearly in one of the streaks of sunlight pouring in through the skylight. Splotch? Bite mark. _Shit._

"He's better than all right, actually," Brackett said. "He's what he was born to be now. Whole. A _real_ sentinel."

"What did you do to him, you --"

"Temper, temper," Brackett said reprovingly. "I only did what you should've done, years ago." Blair drew in a breath -- to ask, to explode, he wasn't sure which -- but Brackett went on without giving him a chance to do either. "And I didn't need any drugs to get what I came for -- Well, that's not entirely true; pheromones, carefully...enhanced. You'll be pleased to know I borrowed a little of your DNA for the project, just enough to get my foot in through the door, not enough to confuse the issue. Then a little guided meditation, some very primal fucking, and the deed is done."

"The deed -- what the fuck are you talking about, you son of a --"

"Bonding, Blair. Your former sentinel and I are now bonded. Didn't your beloved Burton clue you in on that? No? Pity."

"No," Blair said. "You couldn't. It's not --"

"Possible? Oh, but it is. I know what happened in Sierra Verde, Blair. Sentinels are far more controlled by their instincts, their primal imperatives, than you've been willing to let yourself believe. After all, the ideal superman is one who can be lead around by his dick -- by the right person, of course. Superman is only an asset when he does what you want, after all."

"Jim," Blair said. He knew he sounded desperate. "This isn't true. You aren't -- you didn't -- Jim, _talk_ to me."

"Maybe I don't want him to," Brackett said.

"Look, you asshole, even if there is such a thing as bonding, which I am not conceding, it doesn't mean Jim's turned into your lap dog. He can still think for himself."

"Of course he can. Jim?" Brackett made a sweeping gesture up towards Jim and back towards Blair. "You two talk your little hearts out. I'm going out for a while." He bent down, wincing, to pick up his turtleneck from its spot on the floor at the bottom of the steps and pulled it on. "Just remember, Jim, what we decided. And Blair?" Brackett collected his leather jacket from the back of the couch and headed for the door. "He's mine now. Try to change that all you want to, you won't succeed. The ironic thing is he could've been yours instead, if you'd just been a little more... _thorough_ with your research."

The door had barely closed behind Brackett before Blair was up the stairs and standing beside Jim's bed. "Jim," he said again, "talk to me. Are you okay? Brackett's lying, right? I know he is; you and he _can't_ have --" 

"Sandburg, shut up," Jim said. He looked tired. "It's done. Brackett's right, for once." 

"No. _No._ Look, we can have sex, right? You fuck me, I fuck you, if that's all it takes --" 

"Sorry, Chief. I'm not interested in fucking you, not now. And anyway, the wiring inside me feels changed somehow. This feels...permanent." 

"With _Lee Brackett?_ Jim, that's insane. What if this gives him some sort of control over you -- Jim, you can't let it, you have to fight it. You know what Brackett's like." 

Jim looked up at Blair with a half-smile on his face, a half-smile Blair hadn't ever seen before. "He's an amoral son of a bitch. Can't say that bothers me a lot right now, though. I figure I'll rein him in some, he'll test my limits. It'll work out. I don't have a choice." 

"Of course you have a choice!" 

"Not any more. I remember what it felt like with Alex, and nothing I did made any difference there. This is stronger, Chief. A lot stronger. And I don't _want_ to fight it. Tell you the truth, I'm kind of looking forward to the challenge, trying to keep Lee on the right side of the law. Should be interesting." 

"This is a nightmare, right?" Blair muttered to himself. "I'm going to wake up any minute and the guy you fucked last night will turn out to be some guy you picked up in a bar, not Lee fucking Brackett, and I'll _know_ you swing that way sometimes, and I'm done waiting around, I swear, this time I'm going to just _bring_ it to you, man; you are so not going to know what's hit you, and it'll be --" 

"Over, Sandburg." The smile was still on Jim's face, but it looked a little sad now, a little ashamed. "Get it through your head that we're _over,_ you and me. Whatever Brackett did with me, it did a number on my senses -- no, don't start, a good number; they feel more comfortable than they've ever felt. If I need any help down the road, I'll get it from him." 

"Jim, you're not saying -- what are you saying?" 

"Lee and I talked about it. You take your research and go for your doctorate, but keep me out of it, whatever you have to do. You can't do that, get your doctorate on something else. That's not negotiable." Jim's voice hardened. "Neither is moving out. Today." He looked directly into Blair's eyes and at the expression on his face something inside Blair curled up the way a page of a book ( _The Sentinels of Paraguay,_ fucking _Burton)_ curls up into an agony of ashy nothingness under the impersonal implacability of a flame. 

This time it wasn't Alex, it was Brackett. But Jim was throwing him out the same way ("I just need you out of here"). Throwing him out the same way, for something very like the same reason. 

"What happens when I die _this_ time?" Blair asked in a whisper, and held his breath, and waited. And waited. 

And waited. When he didn't get an answer -- not even a clench of Jim's jaw or a shadow passing across Jim's eyes -- he turned and walked away. Stumbled away, through eyes that were suddenly seeing everything through a watery film (tears, the water in the fountain -- what the fuck was the difference?). Stumbled down the stairs. 

(Down, down. Drowning is always a going down.) 

Stumbled out. 

Drowning. 


End file.
